Aunt Andromeda Says
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: Gen, AU. Draco is off for his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His mother is dead and his father is a traitor and people think he's some kind of hero, but Draco trusts in his aunt Andromeda, who raised him, and his cousin Nymphadora, who's his big sister. Everything will be all right.
1. Chapter 1

**Title** : Aunt Andromeda Says  
 **Disclaimer** : J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
 **Pairing** : Gen for main characters, mention of Lucius/Narcissa, Andromeda/Ted, and James/Lily  
 **Content Notes** : AU (Draco is the Boy-Who-Lived), angst  
 **Wordcount** : 3600  
 **Rating** : PG  
 **Summar** y: Draco is off for his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His mother is dead and his father is a traitor and people think _he's_ some kind of hero, but Draco trusts in his aunt Andromeda, who raised him, and his cousin Nymphadora, who's his big sister. Everything will be all right.  
 **Author's Notes** : A July Celebration fic being written for an anonymous request that asked for _A story where Draco is the boy who lived. Maybe raised by Andromeda till he goes to Hogwarts? How was Draco raised and changed en into what child did Harry develop with James and Lily raising him?_

 **Aunt Andromeda Says**

"Let's go early to avoid the crowds!"

Well, it _would_ have been good advice, Draco thought as he stared around at all the shoving, screaming witches and wizards, with trolleys and carts and cages and bags and satchels and trunks and odd wheeled things that they almost seemed to be pushing just to push wheeled things. Dora couldn't know that everyone else would have the same idea.

And then they caught sight of him. Draco braced himself.

"Is that _him_?"

"Draco Malfoy..."

"Do you suppose?"

"He looks just like _him_."

Draco could guess who they meant with that last reference, and he stiffened his back, offended, even as he shoved through the crowds. He did _not_ look just like his bastard of a father who had let Voldemort into the Manor, and then panicked and run when Mother died in Draco's defense and Draco somehow blasted Voldemort to pieces. He wasn't a traitor. He wasn't a coward.

And he had grey eyes that were just like the Black family's, not like the Malfoys'. Aunt Andromeda said so.

"Yes, he's my nephew, and you _will_ leave him alone," Aunt Andromeda said now, stepping past Draco to aim her wand at a gaping red-haired witch who was coming too close. Her gaggle of children stepped back, except for twins who kept craning their necks, but then Aunt Andromeda and Uncle Ted and Dora and Draco were past them, and Draco didn't have to look at their awed faces anymore.

He giggled a little to himself. He wondered what they would say if they knew that his mother wasn't a heroine of the Light, the way everyone claimed she was. She had saved him with Dark magic that she knew as a result of her upbringing. Aunt Andromeda said so.

"Now." They halted next to the Hogwarts Express, and Aunt Andromeda set her hands on Draco's shoulders and looked sternly into his eyes. "What are you going to do once you get on the train?"

"I'm going to find a compartment and sit by myself unless I can find someone who doesn't ask me about the scar the moment they see it," said Draco obediently. "And if someone who looks like Mr. Crabbe or Mr. Goyle or my father shows up, I'm going to lock the door."

"Good. And what happens if someone comes in, pretends to be friendly, and then asks to see your scar?"

"I'll tell them to leave."

"How?"

"Like this." Draco mimicked the glare that Aunt Andromeda had used on the red-haired witch, and she softened and gently trailed the backs of her fingers over his cheek.

"You look so much like Cissy," she murmured, and then she sighed and went on. "And what happens if someone threatens you or asks invasive questions about the night your mother died?"

"Then I tell them that I prefer not to discuss it, and I know a spell that will make them vomit up everything they've eaten for a week."

Aunt Andromeda turned her head and stared at Dora. " _Nymphadora Tonks._ "

"You told me to teach him useful spells!" Dora protested, and her hair turned the color of fire, the way it always did when she was irritated. "That one's useful."

"But you should have taught him to be subtle with it." Aunt Andromeda narrowed her eyes and acted as if she was going to say something else, but Uncle Ted put his hand on her arm and shook his head. Draco watched in fascination. He had tried to pick up on the silent conversations they had when they did that, but to no avail.

"Be subtle," Aunt Andromeda said, turning to Draco then. "I know you can be. Cissy was."

Draco stood tall and proud. To be compared to his mother meant he had to be _good_ -strong, fast, smart. Worthy of being proud and part of the House of Black. "Yes, Aunt Andromeda."

For a moment, she reached out and clasped him close, and Draco let himself rest against her with a sigh. She smelled like the Dreamless Sleep Potion she'd been brewing that morning. Draco had asked why she needed it, since his aunt usually only had nightmares on Halloween, and she's said, "To sleep well the first few nights that you're at school, of course."

She didn't say the words _I love you_ often. Draco had never needed them.

"Now go." Aunt Andromeda released him with a little push, and Draco turned to Uncle Ted and Dora. Uncle Ted gave him a fierce, hard embrace and murmured something into his ear that Draco could barely understand. Emotion just made his uncle more silent, even as it made his aunt talk more. Draco hugged him back and faced Dora.

She gave him a worried smile, and her hair turned blue. "Be careful, little cousin." When she bent down to hug him, she also talked into his ear, but her words were clearer than his uncle's. "I'm going to send you a book of curses for Halloween. Make sure that you keep it close and use it well."

Draco kept from laughing because that would have told Aunt Andromeda something was wrong. He nodded firmly and said, "I will," which answered both things she said. Dora looked a little relieved when she stepped away again.

Draco hopped on the Hogwarts Express and ran swiftly down the main corridor of the train, checking the compartments all the way. Several had students in them, or at least their trunks. When he reached an empty one, he stepped inside, took his trunk out of his pocket-it returned to normal size immediately-and removed two things. One was the book on Potions that he was going to read on the ride to Hogwarts. The other was the cage that held his enchanted crystal snake. Most of the time, the snake was wrapped around Draco's wrist, but there was too much chance she would animate in front of a Muggle crowd at the train station, the way she always did when she thought Draco was in danger. But in front of wizards, Draco thought as he slid her out of the cage and wrapped her around his wrist again, he could wear her freely.

He called her Echo, after the nymph who was in the legend of the narcissus flower.

" _Come on, Echo_ ," Draco said to her in Parseltongue. Aunt Andromeda had also told him to be careful about who he used that language in front of, but he didn't intend to do it when anyone else came into the compartment. " _You can help me look at this book and see if we can impress Professor Snape when we get there._ " Draco had no real doubt that he'd be Sorted into Slytherin, but even if he wasn't, Snape was still going to be his Potions master.

"Wow. You can talk to snakes!"

Draco looked up sharply. He couldn't believe that he'd been so careless as to forget to lock the compartment door. Even Dora would have scolded him for that one.

A boy his own age stood there, in shapeless black robes and what Draco thought was a tattered wig at first, until he realized it was the boy's _hair_ sticking in every direction. His eyes were bright green and fascinated. He had glasses, round ones that Draco liked. He also had a healing bruise on his cheekbone and broken knuckles on his hand.

He saw Draco looking at them and shrugged. "There were some older boys bothering Neville. Neville's a friend of mine."

"And you _punched_ them? What about your wand?"

"What about the Trace? Of _course_ I punched them."

Draco put this aside to consider later. He only knew one Neville among the rumored children his own age. Aunt Andromeda had never allowed them to meet, though, because of the fact that Draco's aunt had tortured Neville's parents into St. Mungo's. There was just no getting past that awkwardness with a woman like Neville's grandmother, apparently. "His last name is Longbottom? What's yours?"

"Yes, and Potter."

Draco slowly sank down in his seat. He hadn't expected someone named Potter to be so friendly. James Potter was the sort that Aunt Andromeda had never tried to introduce him to, either. He was the Head Auror, and very righteous, and he strode about and frowned at people a lot. "James Potter's son?"

"Yes. My name's Harry." Harry studied him and then added, "My mum is Muggleborn. I'm going to go somewhere else if you have a problem with that."

Draco had to smile a little. "I was just thinking that _I'd_ have to leave. Because my name is Draco Malfoy."

"Huh," Harry said, which made no sense. He cocked his head to the side and looked at Draco's forehead for the first time. "Yeah, there's the scar. Well, I don't mind you. I know my father had a grudge against your father, but no one knows where he is, do they?" Then he paused and gave Draco a sidelong glance. "Did he ever climb through your window and take you away for adventures?"

"No. I hate him. My aunt Andromeda Tonks raised me."

"Oh. Too bad."

"Too _bad_ that I hate my father?"

"No, too bad that he never took you away for adventures," Harry explained in that slow, careful tone Draco hated. Aunt Andromeda adopted it when she thought Draco wouldn't understand something. "My godfather does that all the time. I think it's sad that you don't have a life with adventures."

Draco could feel himself turning very red. "You don't think that the way I defeated You-Know-Who was an adventure enough?"

"No. Because you don't remember it, do you?"

"Well-a flash of green light and a scream."

Harry nodded knowledgeably. "It's really memories that are important. They're the only real treasure we have in this world. You spend gold, you get annoyed by ancestral portraits, and jewels are only good to sell, too. But memories remain with you forever."

Draco stared at him. He'd never heard anyone say _that_ before. Aunt Andromeda had always included Draco in discussions of the Malfoy assets and how she thought they should be spent or saved. And she had always insisted that he pay attention to discussions of things like how Galleons converted into Muggle pounds and what jewels would be the most advantageous to sell in shops in Knockturn Alley instead of in the open.

"Are the Potters rich?" Draco assumed they had to be, because they were one of the old families, but Aunt Andromeda had never said.

"Yeah, kind of," Harry said, and grinned. "My dad went out and spent a lot of money when the war ended, and so now we have all these Pensieves full of memories of the parties he threw instead of gold. But we have plenty, and Mum is developing all these charms that people are eager to learn how to cast. She teaches them in return for some gold. And in return for their promise not to use the charms to hurt people, of course." He said that like it was obvious.

Draco blinked. "But you have to hurt some people with magic."

"Oh, I know. I had to fight Death Eaters with my godfather once. He just didn't use any of Mum's charms to do it."

Draco tried to imagine how Aunt Andromeda would react if he was fighting Death Eaters at his age, and retreated from the notion with a shudder. "Why did _that_ happen?"

"Oh, it was one of the adventures when Sirius took me out of the house one night. Some Death Eaters hate him because they think he should have been on their side of the war, because he's a Black, you know. So they came after him when they found him out with me. They thought they could kidnap me and make him do what they wanted that way, you see."

"And it—didn't work out?"

"Two of them ended up in Azkaban that night." Harry grinned, and then he abruptly looked at Draco and winced a little. "Oh. Sorry. I forgot they might have been related to you."

Draco swallowed slowly. "It's just that—no one has ever talked to me about things like that. Aunt Andromeda told me that I'm not to blame for what my father did—"

"You're _not_."

"But she doesn't talk about things like Aunt Bellatrix being on the other side of the war, or your godfather abandoning our family, much. Only what I absolutely need to know."

"Why?"

Draco hesitated. Aunt Andromeda had never _said_ in so many words why that was the case. But he could say what he believed. "She doesn't want to hurt me and make me think about the horrible things so many of the Black family did."

"Sirius didn't do anything horrible!"

"I mean, I don't think she was really thinking about him. But there are other people who did horrible things. You know that Sirius's brother was a Death Eater?"

Harry relaxed and nodded. "Regulus Black, yeah. Sirius told me about him once. But he says now that he thinks he was desperate before the end. He joined when he was young and he probably didn't know what it was all about." Harry flopped into the seat across from Draco and cocked his head at him. "But you can't blame people and decide that they're evil automatically just because of what their family members did. Look what your father did. But you're not him, and you're not evil."

"You don't think I'm evil even though you heard me speaking Parseltongue?"

"No, that's _brilliant_." Harry pointed to Echo. "And she's brilliant. What's her name?"

"Echo. Because she was in the legend of Narcissus, and my mother was Narcissa."

Draco wasn't sure why he said that, either. Maybe just because Harry was the first new child of his own age he'd met. Most of the ones Aunt Andromeda thought it right for him to meet were younger than he was, or had been there for so long that Draco couldn't remember a time when they weren't around, like Ernie Macmillan.

"Brilliant!" Harry hopped on his seat. "Well, I know you didn't have adventures, but at least you have Parseltongue and a snake. What was it like living with your aunt?"

Draco told him, slowly. About the estate management lessons, and the explanations of Dark and Light magic, and the way that Aunt Andromeda would say something and Draco would _know_ it was true, and the magic lessons from Dora, and how Uncle Ted would take him for ices in the Muggle world. Harry laughed and made comments and told Draco things he knew about the Muggle world, too, and how he thought estate management lessons were boring and he was glad he'd never had to go through them.

"But aren't you your parents' heir?"

"Oh, yeah. But they're not planning on dying any time soon, so the lessons can wait until later, can't they?"

Draco blinked. "Aunt Andromeda doesn't believe in letting anything wait until later. She says that she thought she had time to reconcile with her sister—my mum—and then my mum died."

Harry's eyes softened. "Oh, yeah, I reckon I can see that." He waited for a second, then added, "Sirius and my dad had an argument when I was a year old or so. I'm not sure what about. They didn't talk for almost two years. But Sirius realized that he really wanted to be part of our family, so he came back and apologized and he's been my godfather ever since."

"He wasn't already your godfather? Most parents don't choose godparents when their sons are three years old."

"Git," Harry said, and the word sounded fond and like he was used to saying it. "I mean he got to _act_ as my godfather. And he started teaching me—" He hesitated.

"I told you about Dora and the magic lessons!"

"I know you did. Well, all right. Sirius started teaching me how to sneak around and not get caught, and some Dark Arts, and ways to put people off that some of the Blacks learn."

"And your parents wouldn't approve of you learning that?" Draco knew that Aunt Andromeda didn't approve of everything Dora taught him, but she _knew_ about it. She could have stopped it if she wanted to. The idea of Harry's parents not knowing the truth seemed strangely thrilling.

"No. They think—well, they think everything should be as straightforward and honest as possible. They don't like Dark Arts. They don't like lying. They don't like sneaking, except when they play pranks. And my dad plays more pranks than my mum. I don't even think my dad's played one in years."

"Huh." Draco wondered for a second if the Potters would think what he and Dora did was sneaking around, but then reminded himself of what Aunt Andromeda had said about James Potter and forced himself to dismiss the notion. "Are they ever going to find out about it?"

"They'll probably find out about it today."

"Huh? Did you leave them a letter telling them about it or something?" Draco was secure in the knowledge that _he_ would never do such a stupid thing.

"No. I mean that I'm probably going to be Sorted into Slytherin, and they won't have much left to guess by then."

"But Potters are _always_ Gryffindors! Aunt Andromeda said so!"

"Not this one. I've learned too much about the Dark, and I've fought next to Sirius, and I've kept too many secrets. It's going to be Slytherin."

Draco reacted without thinking to the dull despair in Harry's voice. He reached out, and Echo slid off his arm and onto Harry's arm. Harry looked at her with bright-eyed wonder instead of leaping and yelping the way Aunt Andromeda had warned him other children would when they found out he was a Parselmouth.

"It's going to be all right," Draco said. "It would be awful if you had to face it all alone, but I'll be there. I'm going to be Slytherin for sure. Aunt Andromeda said it, and she's right about everything—I mean, most things. I can help you write the letter to your parents, if you want. Aunt Andromeda made me learn to write letters to the press and the Malfoy estate managers."

Harry grinned at him. "How did you get Echo? Who enchanted her?"

And that was all they needed to say.

* * *

 _A mixture of traits, young Malfoy, but most of all you have a burning desire to show the world that you are not exactly as you have been painted…_

"SLYTHERIN!"

Draco smiled and put the Sorting Hat back on the stool. Then he walked over to the Slytherin table, half of which was clapping and half of which was staring at him with cool curiosity. After all, some of them were the children of Death Eaters and might think that he knew where his father was.

 _Well, they'll have something else to stare at in a second,_ Draco thought, and looked back at the Sorting.

Names passed in a blur, although part of Draco's mind was carefully recording them. But the one that mattered was Harry, walking forwards with a jaunty step to his stride and putting the Sorting Hat on as though it was a crown.

Draco, watching closely, saw his lips move for a second, but he couldn't make out what Harry said. Then the Sorting Hat chuckled aloud and announced, "SLYTHERIN!"

More than one of their new Housemates was yelling in outrage. Harry just grinned wider and walked over to sit down at Draco's side. He actually almost sat in Pansy Parkinson's lap before she squeaked in indignation and scooted away. Then he flopped down on the bench and leaned towards Draco.

"Let me know which one of them starts bothering you first," he whispered. "That's the one I'll prank first."

Draco laughed.

* * *

That night, Draco and Harry went to the Owlery to send their letters off. It meant sneaking out of the Slytherin common room and up more staircases than Draco had ever seen in his life, but Harry had an Invisibility Cloak, so it didn't matter. Draco had helped Harry write his letter, as promised, and now there was a hint of polish to it that might help the Potters calm down and accept the inevitable.

They watched their owls fly away, Draco's eagle-owl Andronicus and Harry's white Hedwig. "I wasn't going to name her that," Harry muttered, leaning on the windowsill with the breeze ruffling his hair. "Mum said it was morbid, though, so then of course I _had_ to name her that."

"Why's it morbid?"

"Because Hedwig was the patron saint of orphans."

Draco looked at Harry and heard, like the toll of a bell in his head, his Aunt Andromeda's voice speaking. _You are going to be good friends, even if his sense of humor is rather offensive sometimes._

"Come on," Draco said, breaking the silence. "It's cold up here. Let's go back home."

Harry's smile flashed like a falling star in the darkness.

* * *

And, as she was about most things, Aunt Andromeda turned out to be right.


	2. Adventures With Harry and Echo Part One

**Title:** Adventures with Harry and Echo  
 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
 **Pairing:** None, this is gen  
 **Content Notes:** AU where Draco is the Boy-Who-Lived, Slytherin Harry, a bit of violence  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Wordcount:** This part 4200  
 **Summary:** Living in a world where he's the Boy-Who-Lived and Harry Potter is his best friend, along with a crystal snake named Echo, Draco is bound to get into troub—interesting adventures.  
 **Author's Notes:** This is the sequel to my earlier fic "Aunt Andromeda Says," which you should definitely read first, as otherwise this won't make much sense. Several people asked for the sequel, so here are some of Draco's adventures during his first year. This is one of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics. It has two parts, with another due to be posted tomorrow.

 **Adventures With Harry and Echo**

"Here are your timetables."

Draco looked up as Professor Snape stood in front of him, and nodded politely at the man. Aunt Andromeda had always been wary when she talked about Snape, saying that he had been a Death Eater even if he'd been acquitted later. But Draco saw no reason to antagonize his Head of House. That was something Aunt Andromeda had taught him, too. "Thank you, sir."

"Potter."

Harry looked up, too. He had spent the morning trying to get Echo, Draco's crystal snake, to talk to him. Draco had explained over and over the fact that he could only talk to Echo because he was a Parselmouth, but it hadn't stopped Harry yet. "Yes, sir?"

Snape stood there staring at Harry. Harry blinked innocently, but Draco smiled. He'd only been friends with Harry for a day. He still knew when he was looking innocent.

From the way he glared, Snape did, too. But there wasn't much he could actually _do_ about Harry's Sorting, not when the Hat had said Harry belonged in Slytherin. "Nothing," Snape finally snarled, and stalked away.

"That was fun."

"You mean getting Professor Snape upset?" Draco shook his head, even though he _did_ think it was funny. "My Aunt Andromeda says that you'll never get to do anything much at Hogwarts if your Head of House hates you."

"Well, I can't do anything about my last name or my resemblance to my father, which is why he hates me," Harry said, shrugging. "And I'm not going to go to the Hat and beg it to put me in Gryffindor or something. Snape will just have to learn to live with it."

Then Harry started trying to feed Echo bits of bacon, and Draco had to tell him, again, that she was an enchanted crystal snake who couldn't actually _digest_ anything.

* * *

"Oh, great."

Draco glanced at Harry, then up at the magnificent snowy owl that was flapping towards them. "That's not your Hedwig, is it?" he asked. He'd thought Harry's Hedwig was a bit less majestic and a little more loving.

"No. That's my father's Snow Warrior." Harry watched it gloomily as the owl settled in front of him and extended a demanding leg. "That letter is going to be full of unhappiness about me getting Sorted into Slytherin."

"It's going to be all right. Your parents love you, don't they?"

"Oh, of course they do. But they're not going to be happy at realizing they don't _know_ me." Harry seemed to realize he couldn't put it off forever, and took the letter from Snow Warrior's leg with a little shiver.

It wasn't a Howler, to Draco's relief. But it was a long letter, closely written in a flowing hand that Aunt Andromeda would have approved of. Harry still skimmed it fast, and shook his head and crumpled it up at the end. "No reply," he told Snow Warrior.

The owl hooted in displeasure and didn't move. Harry shoved at him, not something Draco would have tried, which sent him skidding off the end of the table. "No reply, I said!" Harry yelled. Snow Warrior finally flapped away.

"Mr. Potter, you will cease this disturbance at once." Professor Snape had materialized from nowhere, stalking up to the table. "Ten points from—"

He stopped, struggling with himself the way Draco had seen his cousin Dora struggle when she wanted to eat the last biscuits but was trying to leave some for Draco. In the meantime, Harry had widened his eyes and was looking at Snape with a faint smile. "Yes, Professor? I'm sorry, I didn't hear where the points were coming from."

"Never _mind_ ," Snape said, and all but flounced away.

"What does your godfather say about you being Sorted into Slytherin?" Draco asked, to break the silence that lingered around the table. The other Slytherin first-years were staring at Harry as if they had no idea what he would say or do next. It was rather nice, Draco thought. It took the stares away from _him_. _  
_  
"Oh, he expected it," Harry said, shaking his head. "He's the main reason that I'm here, after all."

Draco nodded. After hearing the stories of Harry's adventures with his godfather, he could believe that. "So you're not worried about what your parents will say? Because you know, they _are_ wrong if they think that you shouldn't be in Slytherin, or you shouldn't be my friend."

Harry gave him a complicated little smile, and he said, "I'm not worried." But he spent the rest of breakfast staring at his plate, which said he was. Draco already knew that Harry couldn't eat when he was nervous.

Draco was composing a letter to his Aunt Andromeda in his head, though. She was Sirius Black's cousin, and Harry had said Sirius would be fine with his Sorting. That meant Aunt Andromeda ought to be able to do something.

She'd _always_ been able to do something, in Draco's experience.

* * *

The first Potions class was—interesting. Draco knew now why Dora always had a little pause in her voice before she talked about Professor Snape.

He paused when he spoke Draco's name, and his eyes darted over as if he wanted to pierce his forehead. Draco just looked back, at the center of his nose. He knew about Professor Snape's Legilimency, and he knew how to avoid it.

"Our new—celebrity," Professor Snape murmured, and then he went on calling names. His voice was thick with hatred on Harry's. Harry bowed his head, though.

"I'm honored to be here in your illustrious classroom, Professor."

"Five points from—" Snape stopped and actually looked as though he might stomp his foot for a moment. Then he nodded stiffly, and returned to calling out the roster. Draco rolled his eyes at Harry.

Harry didn't roll his back. He was grinning, and watching Snape with a faux-concerned expression.

As Draco had expected, his brewing went flawlessly. Harry was actually much better at Potions than he had claimed, or at least good about following instructions and listening to Draco when he said an ingredient would make their Boil Cure Potion foam over the top of the cauldron and drench them. He watched a pale, timid Gryffindor boy at the back of the room with a frown, though.

"What is it?" Draco whispered, as Snape swooped by, looked constipated, and then nodded stiffly.

"I think that he put the porcupine quills in—"

BANG! And the disaster that Draco and Harry had managed to avoid happened as that poor boy's cauldron boiled over and covered him in thick liquid. The boy moaned as boils began to pop into existence on his legs. Professor Snape swooped over and started shouting at the boy next to him, who Draco knew was a Weasley.

"That shouldn't have happened," said Harry, his brow wrinkled.

"I know. If he'd been paying attention to the instructions, then it never would have."

"No, I mean Snape yelling at him like that." Harry narrowed his eyes. "That's Neville. I told you Neville is a friend of mine."

Draco felt as if he might faint. "You can't _punch_ Professor Snape," he hissed under his breath, glad that everyone was busy shrieking and laughing and packing up their things and wouldn't hear him. "Not like you did the boys on the train."

Harry looked at him with wide eyes, and then he laughed. His laugh made the other Slytherins turn around and stare at them. None of them seemed to know what to make of Draco and Harry yet. They muttered about Draco being the Boy-Who-Lived, and they muttered even harder about a _Potter_ in the House of Snakes. Draco was just grateful that Crabbe, son of Crabbe the Death Eater, had been Sorted into Hufflepuff, which only left him with Gregory Goyle to deal with.

He hadn't attacked Draco yet, though. Echo and Harry both seemed to confuse him.

"I'm not going to _punch_ him," Harry said in a low voice as they left the Potions classroom. "Just make sure that he doesn't torment Neville anymore."

"How are you going to do that?"

Harry winked. "Just watch. Or—do you want to help?"

Draco hesitated, all of Aunt Andromeda's good advice about not antagonizing Professor Snape filtering through his mind. Then he nodded. "As long as we don't get caught."

"Trust a Marauder's godson for that," Harry said, and grinned.

* * *

"Is that letter from your parents better?" Draco asked Harry politely. He'd written to his aunt about the incident in Potions and received a sternly-worded note about how Aunt Andromeda expected him to _behave_ in Hogwarts. She had pointed out that the Headmaster would be watching him. It was Aunt Andromeda's theory that the Headmaster didn't like the son of a Death Eater receiving all the adulation that Draco did.

The note made a worried fluttering take place in Draco's stomach when he thought about defying Aunt Andromeda's orders. But he _wanted_ to help Harry get vengeance for his friend. He really did.

"Yeah, it is." Harry was grinning as he folded this one and tucked it away. "It's from my mum. She was telling me—" Harry's eyes caught something over Draco's shoulder and he suddenly squared his. "Well, it doesn't matter."

Draco turned and saw Blaise Zabini staring at them. Draco handed him back a regal nod. Zabini turned away and started eating his breakfast again. Draco shrugged at Harry. "You've got to handle them the right way. What's your plan?"

"It's a potion. I know how to brew some of them, but you're a natural. That's one reason I want you to help me."

Draco blinked, feeling a little stung. "The only one?"

Harry rolled his eyes at him. "Is _one_ the same as _only_?"

Draco thought about it, and shook his head. "But I just didn't want you to only be—to only want me to take part in this prank with you because of my natural talent or something," he said, lowering his voice. _Because I'm the Boy-Who-Lived._ It was the reason that people in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw had screwed up the courage to talk to him, alone of all the Slytherins in their year, and why some girls batted their eyelashes at him and people gawked and craned their heads to see his scar.

"I want you to help me because you're my friend." Harry sounded surprised. "It's just _good_ that you're that good at Potions, because I'm only a little good."

Draco grinned as he felt reassurance flood him. "Then I can help."

* * *

In the end, they had to brew the potion in a boys' bathroom on the third floor that no one went into because there was some sort of Permanent Chilling Charm cast on the seats. Draco stood back from the cauldron with a gasp when he was done. It had taken them almost all of September and the first three weeks of October. "Are you sure this is going to work?"

"Well, I mean. Not _sure._ Remember what I said about being only a little good at Potions?" But Harry grinned at him as he poured the rainbow-colored potion into a vial and gave it a shake. The rainbow colors immediately disappeared, and the potion just looked like clear water. "Now all we have to do is splash Snape with it."

" _Splash_ him with it?" Draco stepped back before he thought about it. Echo tightened around his arm. Draco wore her most of the time, and everyone seemed to assume she was just a Slytherin decoration. Then again, Draco was careful not to talk to her in Parseltongue except in front of Harry. "I thought we were going to put it in his food!"

"Do you think we _could_?"

Draco thought about it, and winced. "No."

Harry nodded. "I did try to make friends with a house-elf so that we could, but I can't find my way to the kitchens yet. And I think Snape would probably have spells that could let him detect anything foreign in his food, anyway." He patted Draco's shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll be the one to splash him with it."

"You said you weren't going to get caught!"

"Oh, I'm not. What I'm going to do is wait for the next Potions class, and splash a bit of my potion on him. Only it's actually going to be _this_ potion. It won't reflect badly on you, don't worry. You know that Snape doesn't like us to partner up in Potions class, anyway."

Draco nodded. Professor Snape had sometimes alternated between seeming to notice Draco's last name and seeming to notice his status as the Boy-Who-Lived, but he did approve of Draco's manners and his talent in Potions, and that meant he preferred it when Draco wasn't paired up with his Potter nemesis.

"I might get a detention. But I won't get _caught_. There's a difference." Harry smiled at him. "You can stop looking so worried any second, now. My godfather taught me all about avoiding getting caught."

"By Death Eaters?"

"Well. There's going to be one of those in the Potions classroom, isn't there?"

* * *

The splashing really did seem to go perfectly, Draco had to admit. He was standing right next to Harry, and he couldn't tell when the rainbow potion got splashed onto Professor Snape's sleeve instead of the real one they were making.

Of course Harry got detention, and of course he came out of the class looking perfectly pleased with it. "He's going to make me write lines, probably," he confessed to Draco as they climbed the stairs to the Great Hall. "He doesn't want me doing anything _useful_ , he thinks that would inflate my head or something. He'll take the lines and rip them up right in front of me."

Draco stared at him, appalled, as Echo tightened around his arm in response to his distress. "That's terrible! I always thought he kept them as an example for other students."

Harry snorted. "Well, maybe he does that some of the time, but not with mine. Don't worry about it, Draco. If you ever get detention with him—although I'm not sure he'd dare—then he'll probably keep yours." He patted Draco's shoulder. "Anyway, do you want me to activate the potion tomorrow night? Or not?"

Draco swallowed around a difficult lump in his throat. The next night was Halloween. The night his mother had died and his father had become a traitor and a fugitive. His hand went to the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. It had sometimes ached, but not with any pattern he could figure out.

"I'll do whatever you want." Harry's eyes were soft. "Distract you, or wait so you can grieve in peace."

Draco took a deep breath and touched Echo's back. At home, this was a night of mourning for his mother. Aunt Andromeda would spend most of the day telling Draco stories about their childhood, what it was like to grow up as a Black sister. Most of the stories were bracing, like a brisk wind. None of them were really cheerful. But sometimes Aunt Andromeda smiled anyway.

Then, at night, they burned a candle for his mother and told her all the many things that had happened throughout the year that they thought she might like to hear about. Draco had never known _for sure_ if his mother was looking through the candleflame the way Aunt Andromeda said she was, but sometimes it felt that way.

Here…

Here he would have to go to classes all day, but he hadn't planned on attending the stupid feast that night. He wanted to hole up in his bed by himself—well, with Echo—and read the letters that Aunt Andromeda had sent him a week ago, which she'd told him on the envelope not to open until now.

But if he was going to have to go to classes _anyway_ , then he could put up with going to the feast for five minutes. It wasn't going to take much longer than that to make him smile, he knew.

"Do it at the feast," he said. "Right at the very beginning, so that then I can go and spend time by myself with Aunt Andromeda's letters."

He flushed a second later, because he thought he'd have to explain that last part, but Harry didn't demand any explanation. He just let his hand rest on Draco's shoulder and increased his look of sympathy, and insensibly, Draco _did_ feel better than he had.

"Right at the very beginning," Harry agreed softly.

* * *

At the very beginning of the feast the next night, Draco glanced at Harry. Harry grinned at him and held up the vial of potion in his hand. It had turned to rainbow colors again. But he palmed it under the table in a way that made Draco suspect he'd done things like this before.

Dumbledore had just sat down from pronouncing them welcome to the feast, and Harry spilled the potion on the floor. Then he stood up and said in a clear, carrying voice, "I just want to know one thing, Professor Snape. How do you treat students in your classroom that you think are incompetent?"

"I torment them to make sure that they're too afraid of me to make truly ghastly mistakes," Snape said at once. "And I make sure that they'll drop Potions after the OWLS. It's a pity that it's a required subject before that. It would make so much more sense to get rid of them in their first year."

The silence that spread across the Great Hall made Draco feel a strange, squirming sensation inside. On the one hand, Harry was embarrassing their Head of House. Even though Professor Snape wouldn't be able to prove that his confession was due to a potion that Harry had spilled on him, Harry was going to get into trouble for this. And seeing Slytherin's Head of House being embarrassed wasn't great.

But on the other hand, seeing how hard Harry fought for his friends made Draco proud to be one.

"And if they start crying, isn't that dangerous?" Harry asked, hitting the next question without a beat missed. "Because they could be upset and cause a worse accident than if they were just allowed to go on and do their own thing?"

"What do I care about their tears? I want their _terror_. I want them to stop being dunderheads in my classroom! If I scare them, maybe they'll study more!"

"But I just think being paralyzed by fear would actually be a detriment. Sir."

Draco hid his smile in his sleeve. Honestly, Harry's last-minute effort at respect was probably just going to get him into more trouble later. It was becoming clear that "getting caught" just meant "don't get caught in the initial prank." Harry didn't care what danger came at him when he was defending someone.

"If they do improve, then I reap the benefits of that. If they don't, then at least I get to see them stare at me in fear and respect instead of laziness and insolence."

"Severus! Mr. Potter! That is _enough_!" The Headmaster stood up, casting a long ribbon of light from his wand that flashed in the air and impressed Draco. He hadn't ever seen a spell that could do that. "I understand why you may have felt the need to bring honesty forwards, Mr. Potter, but I am going to ask that you end the effect of this spell now."

Harry caught Draco's eye and nodded. Draco grabbed a few of the pumpkin pasties on the table, all he would probably have the appetite to eat tonight, and slipped out the door.

He wandered through the corridors, nibbling at the pasties and talking to Echo when he thought there wasn't anyone around to hear. Right after one time he did that, a tremendous roar echoed around the corner. Draco jumped guiltily. Had he pissed off some powerful suit of armor or portrait with his Parseltongue?

But then a thick, overpowering smell stormed towards him, and he gasped. He remembered Aunt Andromeda describing that combination of noise and smell to him once. It was a troll, and he was to run if he ever encountered one.

Draco began moving backwards, one cautious step at a time. Echo lifted her head off his arm, the way she was supposed to do to respond to danger, but Draco wasn't going to send her after a _troll._ It would break her, and he doubted that the enchantments and poisons she could use would pierce its thick skin.

He didn't have a lot of real friends, but he thought Echo was one.

Then he heard impossible sounds coming down the corridor towards him, the same corridor he thought the troll was in. It sounded like Harry's voice, but it couldn't be because Harry was still back in the Great Hall.

At least...Draco thought he was.

But then he listened, and he had to admit that the sounds were exactly like Harry's voice. And he was speaking words that Harry could have said, too.

"Now, you don't want to be hasty, Professor…"

Draco leaned slowly towards the corner, while at the same time keeping as far away as he possibly could. Harry was backing up in front of Professor Snape, who was stalking towards him with murder in his eyes. Draco wondered for a fleeting second if Professor Snape was so obsessed with hurting Harry that he'd ignored the troll's smell and the sound of its roar.

Then the troll roared again. Professor Snape spun around with his wand in the air, which at least proved that he cared more about stopping trolls than students. Draco managed to catch Harry's eye, and Harry started and ran towards him.

"Both of you must go back to your common room at once," Professor Snape hissed. "You cannot deal with a troll."

Harry promptly got a stubborn expression on his face, but Draco nodded and said, "Yes, sir." Then he grabbed Harry's arm and started pulling him towards the Slytherin common room. Harry came with him, although he kept craning his neck back so that he could see Professor Snape over his shoulder.

Later Draco thought it shouldn't have happened the way it did. He and Harry were doing everything right. They were doing what their professor said, and heading back to their common room. They weren't getting in trouble. He hadn't even thought about taking on the troll, or letting Echo take on the troll.

But the wall beside them on the right suddenly smashed aside, and the troll was looming there, blinking. Draco stared with fear creeping over his skin. It looked almost like the troll had been in a secret passage and had used its club to clear the stone out of its way.

Professor Snape snarled a spell that Draco didn't hear. It bounced off the corridor wall and hit the troll directly in the chest, but it did nothing except knock it back a step. Aunt Andromeda had been right; troll skin really _was_ spell-resistant.

Although, for once, Draco really, really wished Aunt Andromeda hadn't been right about something.

The troll swung its club in the air, but it didn't seem to see Professor Snape or realize that the spell had come from him. It lumbered towards Harry and Draco instead, waving its club and roaring all the way. Harry dipped his hand in his pocket, and Draco grabbed his wrist.

"You can't use the potion on this thing!" he said.

"I didn't say I was going to," Harry said cheerfully, and then he took something that shone almost violently red from his pocket and threw it at the troll. Confused, Draco saw that it was a small pot with the lid flying off. He shook his head. He thought Harry was still trying potions, but—

The little jar, or rather the red mist spreading out from the little jar, hit the troll in the eyes, and it went _mad._

Draco cowered from the noises it was making. They were huge and horrible and _gloopy_ , and yellow lumps of something went flying past him to smash into the wall. Harry, laughing wildly, grabbed Draco by the arm that didn't have Echo on it and pulled him through an open door, while Professor Snape started casting spells at the troll again.

A few seconds later, Draco sighed with relief as he heard the troll crash into the floor. He turned around and shook his head at Harry. "What even was that thing you threw? What potion?"

"It wasn't a potion." Harry grinned. "It was crushed red pepper from the Slytherin table."

Draco stared at him. "And you carry that around just in hopes of making trolls sneeze with it?"

"Oh, no. I picked it up tonight and I was going to throw it in Snape's eyes if he got close enough to catch me. But it's pretty lucky I had it when we ran into the troll, wasn't it?"


	3. Adventures With Harry and Echo Part Two

The repercussions of that night took over a month to die down.

First, Professor Snape tried to assign Harry and Draco detention. Dumbledore, of all people, was the one to intervene and say that he thought Harry and Draco had acted bravely and they had obviously run into the troll by unlucky accident.

Draco sat in the chair in the Headmaster's office and was quiet, the way his aunt had taught him. Harry, meanwhile, had an expression of wide-eyed innocence that Draco couldn't help but admire, even as he wondered how Harry managed to hold onto it. He supposed that running around with his godfather and then lying to his parents about it probably gave him some practice.

Anyway, Harry still got detention for using the potion on Professor Snape, but he didn't seem to mind that. He even got some congratulatory letters from his father and godfather over it, he told Draco.

Then, Aunt Andromeda sent a letter to Draco about the troll that only consisted of one line. _I am disappointed in you._

Draco moped about it for two days, which was how long it took Harry to get Draco to tell him what was wrong. Then Harry volunteered to send an envelope full of slugs to Aunt Andromeda, which Draco had to talk him out of.

"She has no right to say something like that to you!" Harry was sitting on the edge of Draco's bed, his eyes full of fire.

Draco gave him a tentative smile. He could tell their friendship puzzled the other Slytherin boys, but most of them stayed away. Crabbe still hadn't confronted Draco. Theodore Nott was prone to watching and waiting anyway. And Blaise Zabini was the sort of person who nodded at everybody and acted cool or friendly as it suited some internal schedule.

"She _does_ have the right to say things like that to me, though," Draco tried to explain to Harry. "She's my aunt, and she's disappointed in me."

"But it's not like you went out and hunted down the troll!"

"No, but I still could have hidden and not got involved."

"I was the one who threw the pepper in the troll's eyes. _I_ was the one who got involved."

"I have to write back to her," Draco said, staring down at the ink and parchment that still waited. He very much did not _want_ to write back to Aunt Andromeda. It made his throat clog and his nose sting. "What am I even going to say? I know Dora disappointed her sometimes and Dora laughed it off, but it's just hard to do with me."

"Tell her the truth," Harry said, and grabbed his hands. "Even blame me if you want. People do, like Professor Snape, and it doesn't bother me."

"Why not, though?" Draco asked, looking at him in wonder. "I would be so upset if my aunt even wrote me a letter like the ones you got from your parents after your Sorting, and this is _worse._ "

Harry shook his head. "It was actually something my parents taught me. My mum's Muggleborn, you know?" Draco nodded. Uncle Ted was Muggleborn, and he was brilliant, so it wasn't like Draco had some kind of grand prejudice against them. "Well, she got a lot of guff from pure-bloods when she married my dad, but she stood up to them and just said that she was jolly well going to marry him anyway. And my dad married her. And my godfather doesn't care what anybody thinks of him. Especially not his family."

"I know Aunt Andromeda would like to reconnect with him," Draco offered awkwardly.

Harry smiled, but didn't say anything else about the Blacks. "Well, anyway, you can blame me if you want, because I do what I think is right and it doesn't matter if even my family is upset with me about it."

Draco hesitated for a long time after that, but in the end wrote back to Aunt Andromeda and said that he'd been on his way back to the Slytherin common room after the incident with the troll, and that he hadn't meant to run into it and hadn't even known there was a troll there, and Professor Snape hadn't been able to give him detention.

She sent a letter a week later that finally, finally, said, _As long as you haven't ruined your reputation with Professor Snape. Did you read the letters that I sent you before Halloween yet_?

Draco hadn't, because the letter she'd sent him had made him afraid to, but he went back and did, and every one of them said how much she loved him and how hard these few months at home had been without him.

It had the effect his aunt wanted, at least. Even when Draco was scared to write to her, she never wanted him to doubt that she loved him. And Draco never would again, now.

He didn't even have to blame Harry.

* * *

"Have a great Christmas, Draco."

Draco hugged Harry back hesitantly as he stood in the train station. He could already see Harry's parents waiting in the distance, with Sirius Black next to them, grinning at his aunt. Aunt Andromeda stood like a patient statue, and it was weird for Draco not to run to her at once. But he wouldn't see Harry except maybe on New Year's Eve, a holiday that all the Blacks had always celebrated, and he wanted to make sure Harry knew he would miss him.

Harry's grin was wild as he drew back, an exact copy of Sirius Black's, and he ruffled Draco's hair like Dora for a second before running off to his parents. James Potter hugged him so hard that Draco heard him gasp.

Draco walked, with more decorum, over to Aunt Andromeda, who held her hand out and smiled as Draco clasped it. Uncle Ted was more open, leaning over and hugging Draco hard, too. Draco was glad that he didn't gasp like Harry did, though.

"Where's Dora?" Draco asked as he stepped back, looking around. He didn't see a hair of his cousin's multicolored head, which was pretty unusual.

"She had to stay late for Auror training," said Uncle Ted. Draco looked a little nervously at Aunt Andromeda, who still hadn't said anything.

But his aunt nodded now, and her smile was brilliant and slow when it came. "Yes, that's right. She'll be home tonight, Draco, and I know that she's eager to hear the stories of your adventures at Hogwarts, as we are." For a moment, her eyes darted in the direction of the Potters. "Even if they're more adventurous than I would personally be comfortable with."

"Don't blame Harry," Draco said. "I was the one who went along with brewing that potion." He'd of course told Aunt Andromeda about the potion that Harry had used on Professor Snape, although he'd emphasized that Harry was the one who got detention for it.

"I am not saying that I blame him. I am saying that I am not sure he is a proper friend for you, with your reputation as the Boy-Who-Lived to keep up."

Draco drew himself up as far as he could. "I appreciate your opinion, Aunt Andromeda, but I think I have to choose my own friends," he said, as calmly as he could.

For a moment, he had the distinct impression that Uncle Ted was holding his breath. Aunt Andromeda stared at Draco while the air between them seemed to spark with winter's light, deep and cold.

Then Aunt Andromeda smiled more brilliantly than before. "I don't need to worry about you, then, not with pride like that," she said, and she took his hand, and they walked over to one of the Floos that led into King's Cross.

Draco glanced back, but the Potters had disappeared with Harry. He did see Sirius Black looking towards him. He gave Draco a little smile before he Apparated.

Draco then turned to look at Aunt Andromeda. She was watching the place where Sirius had disappeared with a calm, thoughtful face.

"I look forward to New Year's Eve," was all she said before she led them to the Floo, and they disappeared in a flash of flame.

* * *

"Let's burn the old year!"

Draco stared at Sirius Black as he danced madly around the fire in the middle of the garden behind Aunt Andromeda's house. He was waving a full bottle of…something…over his head, and howling like a maniac. Or like a dog, which he'd just told Draco he could turn into.

Draco shook his head and glanced over at Harry. Harry was standing next to him, smiling, with shadows playing across his face. His hair glinted with a little bit of red where the light caught it. Draco wondered if that was because his mum had red hair, although Harry said he thought of his as black.

Harry caught his eye and smiled back. Then he said, "Well, aren't we?"

"Aren't we what?" Draco then cautiously eyed Aunt Andromeda, who hadn't moved much since they'd come out to the garden and lit the fire. She stood with her hands clasped in front of her, but she wore a white gown, one that was touched with soft color as the firelight flickered on it. Draco only saw her wear that gown on the last day of the year.

Uncle Ted wasn't here, but Dora was, yelling cheerful words at Sirius as they danced around the fire. Uncle Ted always excused himself, even though Draco knew Aunt Andromeda had said he could come. According to Uncle Ted, some ceremonies were just a little too Black family for him.

"Burning the old year!"

"But that's just an _expression._ You light the fire and then you talk about how it's consuming all your old fears—"

"It means something more than that when Sirius and I do it." Harry leaned towards him, and Echo stirred on Draco's arm for a second as though she assumed someone being so close to him meant she would have to do something about it. Harry was smiling at Draco with slightly scary cheerfulness, though. "Come on. Or are you too _scared_?"

"Neither of us is a Gryffindor," Draco muttered, but he followed Harry towards the fire. Aunt Andromeda watched them go, and Dora turned her hair bright red as she noticed them.

"Are you going to do it?" she asked eagerly.

"I always do it every year!" Harry shouted back, and then he closed his eyes and put his hands together in front of him. Draco squinted suspiciously at him. There was something bright and glinting forming over Harry's hands. Draco wanted to tell him he couldn't use magic outside of school, but of course, he probably could get away with it here, given the presence of so many adult wizards.

And he didn't look as if he was using his wand, anyway.

The white light surged out of Harry's hands and rose above him. Draco could hear soft muttering coming out of it, all in Harry's voice. There was something about _Snape_ and something about _Slytherin_ and something about _Death Eaters._

"What are those?" Draco whispered. "It?" He didn't know what was the right pronoun for a seething cloud with multiple words springing from it.

"Old fears!" Harry opened his eyes and grinned at Draco. "You summon them forth so you can burn them in the fire. Come on, Draco, I bet you can do it if you want to. _I_ can do it, and that's just because Sirius taught me. I'm not a Black by blood!"

Draco had still never heard of something like this, and from the slight frown on Aunt Andromeda's face, he thought maybe it was something she hadn't planned to teach him until he was older. But he still cupped his hands in front of him and focused as hard as he could on all his old fears.

The troll. Getting in trouble with Professor Snape. The sick terror that had consumed him when he read Aunt Andromeda's letter about being disappointed in him. Going to Hogwarts. Not having any friends.

When he opened his eyes, the cloud was dancing above him, as pale as his hair. Harry whooped at him and darted towards the fire. Draco followed, although at the more sedate pace and with the quietness that he knew Aunt Andromeda would expect from him.

The fear-clouds whirled around them, and as Harry began to dance around the fire like the mental Black he was, his cloud swirled straight into the flames. Draco gasped as he heard the muttering stop, and then something soft and bright green rose from the fire. Harry reached out his hands to cup it.

"That's the fire's blessing," he told Draco. "My new year is going to be full of luck and hope."

Draco decided that he could do that, too, and he wanted that. It had everything to do with participating in a Black family tradition, of course, and not because he didn't want to show Harry he was scared.

He felt a momentary twinge as the white cloud burned up in the flames, but then a surge of peace as the green dust drifted out and covered him. For a second, he thought he saw his mother's smiling face there, more clearly than he'd ever seen it in the dreams where she died to protect him.

He didn't have a lot of time to think about it, though, or that it might have made him depressed. Harry grabbed his hands and pulled him into a dance around the fire, and Sirius was laughing and joking, and Dora danced with both of them, and Aunt Andromeda smiled while the fire-shadows played on her face.

Draco thought he had never been happier.

* * *

"Hagrid can't keep a secret to save his life, you know."

Draco started as Harry dropped into the seat next to him at the library table. He blinked once and shook his head a little. "Yes, all right, that's been established. But what does Hagrid have to do with you?"

"He came and took me to his hut for a visit." Harry smiled at Echo. He always noticed her, while even the people who tried to spend the most time acting like Draco's best friends never did and treated her like an ornament. "He said that since he knows my Dad and Sirius, he should talk to me."

"About what?"

"Well, something I don't think he was supposed to talk about, really." Harry leaned forwards with his eyes glowing mischievously. "But he was bursting to tell _someone_. He's got a three-headed dog here in the castle."

"Where in the _world_ —" And then Draco realized it, and wanted to smack himself in the forehead, and Harry, for going and finding something like this out. "The third-floor corridor that no one is supposed to go into!"

Harry's eyes were bright as he nodded. "And he says its name is Fluffy and it's guarding something."

"That's what three-headed dogs _do_ ," Draco said in exasperation. Harry gave him a blank look. Draco shook his head. "Never mind. Just things that my Aunt Andromeda taught me." Her lessons in mythology were more interesting than most of Draco's subjects now, although at least Potions and Transfiguration were decently challenging. "And did Hagrid tell you what it was?"

"No. He stopped and said that it was Nicholas Flamel's secret."

"Well, he's famous for creating the Philosopher's Stone," Draco drawled, and waited.

Harry's eyes widened. "But it would be _ridiculous_ to have the Philosopher's Stone here in the castle!"

"Maybe not. My aunt—" And then Draco stopped guiltily. _Talk about people who can't keep secrets to save their lives,_ he scolded himself.

Harry raised his eyebrows. Then he said, "Come ooooon, Draco. Tell me."

"It's really not something I'm supposed to talk about."

Harry thought about that for a long, hard moment. Draco could almost see him wrestling his curiosity into submission. Finally, Harry nodded with a long sigh. "Okay, if you're really not supposed to talk about it, I reckon I can respect that."

Draco smiled at him. "Thanks." He couldn't think of many other Slytherins who would have let it go.

"But if you change your mind, you know where I sleep."

Draco was becoming intimately familiar with the backs of his eyelids and the way they looked when he rolled his eyes since he'd got to know Harry. He settled now for doing it once, and then opening his eyes quickly as Harry said, "So what are we going to do about the dog and the Stone?"

"Leave them alone, of course. What did you _think_ we would do?"

"I thought we could sneak in and see the dog, and try to figure out a way past it—"

"Look, this isn't like one of the adventures your godfather took you on where you fought Death Eaters who probably weren't all that dangerous and escaped," Draco said, and not even he had known his voice could sound that harsh. "This is _serious_. There are really good reasons that we shouldn't try to find our way past that dog, okay? That's the way it is."

Harry sat back. "Well, it must be. I don't think that I've ever heard you say 'okay' before. You're too posh for that."

Draco sighed and resisted the temptation to lower his head to rest on the table. "Whatever you want to hear, Harry. But the fact remains that we can't get past the dog, and we shouldn't try." He stroked Echo, who was reassuringly solid and still against his hand.

"All right," Harry said finally. "But I wouldn't be surprised if trouble related to the dog comes looking for us, you know."

"Why?"

"Call it this instinct formed from fighting Death Eaters who probably aren't all that dangerous," Harry said, and then opened his Transfiguration book and started talking about the homework, and no matter what Draco said, he couldn't get him to say another word about the dog or the Stone or his instincts, which was beyond annoying.

* * *

Draco dodged, gasping, as Professor Quirrell lurched off him again. It had actually been easy enough to get past the other traps when his instincts and Harry's had urged them to check and they'd found the music playing to soothe the dog to sleep. Draco's teaching in Herbology had told him to use fire on the Devil's Snare, and Harry's prowess on a broom had let them catch the flying key. There had been a minor scuffle when Harry had wanted to sacrifice himself as one of the chess pieces, but Draco had conjured a little golem that did just fine.

"Where did you learn to do _that_?" Harry had asked in an undertone as he scrambled away from the chessboard to stand next to Draco.

"Aunt Andromeda, of course." Draco had grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him across the room.

They'd found the troll already unconscious, and Draco had worked out the potions riddle without hesitating. He'd thought there was only enough for one dose, but Harry had cast a Flame-Freezing Charm on the fire in the doorway. That had only held it for a second, but enough for Harry to slip through behind him.

Now, though, Draco's throat ached with regret. He was going to get his friend killed. Professor Quirrell was firing Killing Curses around.

And Draco had seen a shadow behind him, near the entrance. He suspected he knew who it was, which was why he had wanted to come.

But then there was a shout, and Professor Quirrell pitched forwards and slammed his head into the floor. His _turban_ gave a muffled shriek. Draco stared, while Echo reared up menacingly on his arm.

Then Harry whipped around and cast another Stunner behind him, at the shadow near the door started to move. The shadow whirled aside. The hood it had been wearing flew away, and Draco watched with a sense of despair as blond hair identical to his spilled down its shoulders.

"Draco," gasped Lucius Malfoy. "Son. Join with me, and we will accomplish great things in the Dark Lord's service!"

Draco actually had no chance to say anything, because a hand grabbed his ankle. Harry's Stunner must not have worked on Professor Quirrell as well as he thought.

Draco cried out and lurched backwards. Echo struck from his arm as his father reached out to grasp him. Her fangs sank into Lucius's arm at the same moment as Draco smelled something burning.

Lucius and Professor Quirrell shrieked together. Draco stared at the red lines spreading up his father's arm. He might have stood there staring forever, but Harry grabbed him around the waist as he leaped past, ending up with them rolling on the floor and Draco free from Quirrell's hold on his ankle.

Draco turned his head and saw the flames marching up Professor Quirrell's arm. He was screaming madly, trying to beat them out, while something else uttered thin, high sounds from behind the turban.

"Don't look," Harry whispered, wrapping his arms around Draco. "Don't look."

"Then you shouldn't be looking, either," Draco said. His voice was strange and small and broken to him. Echo was wrapped tightly around his arm and squeezing it with rhythmic contractions of her crystal body, the way she always tried to soothe him.

"We won't look together."

So they hid their eyes, and even when something evil and cold passed over them, they didn't raise their heads. They stayed like that until Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape came and found them together in the chamber, with the ashes of only one body.

Lucius Malfoy had gone.

* * *

"I am afraid that I must assure you, my boy, that Lord Voldemort is very much alive."

Draco blinked at Dumbledore saying that. "I knew that, sir. I mean, I felt the cold evil thing pass over us, but I knew that already," he added, when Dumbledore started to open his mouth with a patronizing smile on his face. "Aunt Andromeda always told me that he was alive and he would come back for me someday."

Dumbledore hesitated for a long moment. The white lights of the infirmary made his beard glow even whiter. Draco looked kind of stubbornly at the beard. He didn't want to meet Dumbledore's eyes. Aunt Andromeda had taught him too much about Legilimency, but not much Occlumency yet.

"Why did you and Mr. Potter decide to go down there?" Dumbledore finally asked. "Mr. Potter has been in the process of getting scolding from his parents and godfather for the past hour and hasn't been able to answer me."

Draco narrowed his eyes. He had thought that Aunt Andromeda was just coldly angry with him and that was why she wasn't here, but now another possibility occurred to him. "Did you tell my aunt where I am? What happened?"

"My dear boy—"

" _Did_ you?"

"We both know that Mrs. Tonks sometimes gets excited," Dumbledore said, although he didn't say how _he_ knew that. Draco didn't think he and Aunt Andromeda had ever met since Draco came to live with her. "I wanted the chance to have a quiet chat with you without all the excitement in the background."

Draco nodded. "I understand completely."

"You do?" Dumbledore gave him a hopeful smile.

"Yes, sir." Draco let any trace of softness fade from his face as his eyes narrowed.  
"And I know that I need her here right now, excitement and all. Now please Floo her, or she won't be pleased when I owl her."

"I will speak with her and tell her that it was my fault so you will not be punished."

"I'm afraid of being pulled out of Hogwarts more than I am being punished," Draco said shortly.

Dumbledore looked completely surprised. "Your aunt would do that?"

"She would if she thought it was anything more than a coincidence that I ran into danger here my first year." Draco leaned forwards a little in his bed. "Floo her, please, Headmaster, or I'll have to get up and do it myself."

Maybe just because he didn't want the extra "excitement" of explaining to Aunt Andromeda how Draco had fallen on the floor and cracked his head when he was still too weak to walk around, Dumbledore gave in.

* * *

"That was completely irresponsible of you, Draco."

Draco cringed. He had known this was coming. "Irresponsible" was almost the worst word in his aunt's vocabulary. He sat up and folded his arms defiantly, though, with Echo curled around his elbow. "I know what I saw, Aunt Andromeda. He was there."

"Yes, your Headmaster has told me all about how the Dark Lord was there, and why it means that you need extra training."

Draco shook his head. "I don't mean _him_. I mean _him_. Father," he added quickly, since he could see Aunt Andromeda's mouth opening and knew he was probably in for a scolding about the imprecise quality of his language.

Aunt Andromeda sat back with a much paler face than normal and stared over Draco's head at the far corner of the infirmary where someone with dragonpox was resting right now. "You're certain of that?" she whispered.

"Yes, of course. I saw him. And Echo bit him. But he was gone when Harry and I got up. I think he survived the poison."

Aunt Andromeda nodded. "He would have some means of that. The Malfoys have—always been clever."

Draco didn't take that as an insult. His last name was Malfoy and would remain so to the outside world, but _he_ was a Black. "Where do you think he went? Where has he been? Why was he helping _him_? What's he going to do next?"

His flood of questions brought a faint smile to Aunt Andromeda's face. "He was helping the Dark Lord, and he doesn't have anyone else would take him in when he betrayed his own kin, so he must hold to that allegiance. But the other questions, I'm afraid, I can't answer."

Draco scowled down at his hands. Aunt Andromeda spoke before Draco could start brooding about why he had such a _stupid_ father. "I'm afraid that I must insist on you answering me, Draco."

Draco started and looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"Why did you decide to go down there in the first place?'

Draco steeled himself. She wasn't going to like this. "Harry and I knew that the three-headed dog was probably guarding the Philosopher's Stone. We didn't want to disturb it or anything, but sometimes we checked on the dog just to make sure that it was still there and still doing what it was supposed to do. This evening, I mean that evening, we checked and that music was playing and the dog was asleep, so we went down because we didn't want Voldemort to get the Stone. And Professor Quirrell _burned_ when I touched him! Why did that happen, Aunt Andromeda?"

Aunt Andromeda sighed and came over to the bed to fold her arms around him. "I can't be sure, but I think when your mother died, she created that sacrificial magic that's your protection as an active weapon against the Dark Lord. When his host touched you, the protection couldn't burn the spirit form that the Dark Lord has apparently taken, but it could burn the human body he inhabited."

Draco shivered. He was proud, and he missed his mum, and he wished that she was still here, and he was horrified that had happened.

"So I didn't murder him."

"No. Don't be ridiculous." Aunt Andromeda pulled back enough so that she could look sternly into Draco's eyes and touch his chin with her hand for a moment. "I don't want you to ever worry about that. Besides, he tried to murder _you_. So he deserved what he got."

Draco didn't know if he believed that as much anymore after a year spent at the school, where things seemed to get complicated and confusing all the time, but he let Aunt Andromeda hug him until the Potters came over to meet her, and then he got to watch the way Mr. and Mrs. Potter fussed and stood their distance and Sirius Black grinned at the whole thing.

But best of all was when Harry got out of bed and came over and stood next to them, and Draco got to see that his friend was all right, like him, magical exhaustion or no magical exhaustion.

* * *

"Of course you'll visit me over the holidays."

Draco, who after some of the things Aunt Andromeda had said to him wasn't sure he would be going anywhere without an escort ever again, still nodded obediently.

"I'm going to miss you," Harry said conversationally, and suddenly launched himself forwards and hugged Draco.

Draco froze for a second. They were in the middle of King's Cross, where _anyone_ could see, and he'd focused that year on projecting a slightly chilly friendliness. It kept people away from him while also not encouraging them to think that the Boy-Who-Lived was some kind of haughty blood purist. Was Harry going to ruin everything with a hug?

And then it occurred to Draco that he would rather ruin his deception than ruin his friendship, and he grabbed Harry back and hugged him tight.

"You can come visit me, too," he said into Harry's neck.

Harry laughed and pulled back with his eyes bright. "Of course," he said. Draco noted that Mr. Potter, who seemed like the uptight suspicious Auror-type, was watching them with his hand on his wand, which was probably why Harry whispered what he said next. "Even if I have to sneak out with Sirius instead of just walking out the front door."

"Your parents think that—"

"They think you put me in danger, not the other way around. And they still sort of think that meeting you on the train is what got me Sorted into Slytherin." But Harry didn't sound very upset about it, just rolling his eyes in the way Draco had to do with his aunt and uncle sometimes. "I'll see you in a few weeks!"

And he walked away with his trunk dragging behind him and Hedwig, his beautiful owl, balancing on his shoulder. His father continued to look doubtfully at Aunt Andromeda while Harry's mother put her hand on his shoulder and drew him close.

"Ready for a good summer, little dragon?" Cousin Dora asked. The Aurors had given her special time off from training to come meet him, although Draco privately thought that was also because lots of Aurors had kids at Hogwarts, too. Dora turned her hair brilliant purple and winked at him.

"It's going to be brilliant," Draco said firmly, and on his arm, Echo stirred as if in agreement.

 **The End.**


End file.
